At performances of Tchaikovsky's ballet, a synonym for the holidays in America, the audience is so mesmerized by little reed flutes, coffee-consuming Arabs and waltzing flowers that it loses sight of little Clara, who dreams the dances that make this the classic that it is.

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"It's about Clara's transition to adulthood," says Gil Boggs, who directs Colorado Ballet's "Nutcracker," the region's major staging of the work. "She's 14, and she's in love for the first time.

"'Nutcracker' is about that love and about her experience of life. There's more to it than the party at the Stahlbaums, in progress when the curtain goes up."

Crucial moment in the story is when the wooden Nutcracker, a gift to Clara from her uncle Drosselmeyer, comes to after the defeat of the Mouse King.

Jennifer Aiken and Rob Kuykendall, as Clara and the Nutcracker Prince, in last year's Boulder Ballet production of "The Nutcracker." (Catrine Turillon)

"Clara has experienced so much already, and we have to create her excitement on stage," Boggs says.

And for the Nutcracker, now her princely escort on an enchanted journey, this is also first love.

"Clara has grown up, and the Prince will now guide her as she matures further," says Boggs, in his fifth season as CB's artistic director.

Although Clara is obviously a girl in the grips of puberty, in view of the many children that pack Denver's "Ellie" for 16 performances, the CB "Nutcracker" downplays this aspect of the story.

"Nonetheless, like Clara, we're all overwhelmed by the virginal whiteness of the snow scene," says Boggs, who danced all the male roles in this ballet during his 17 years with American Ballet Theatre.

"It's a big moment when the corps de ballet appears as Snowflakes."

"Tchaikovsky's music is heavenly!" says Moscow-born Maria Mosina, one of four CB ballerinas who dance the Sugar Plum Fairy in the second act of the production. "But at the Bolshoi, where I began my career, there was no Sugar Plum; there was only Clara, in the spotlight for the entire staging.

"But I didn't think much about her; only the beauty of the dance concerned me."

Mosina, who joined Colorado Ballet in 1994, has danced in more than 300 performances of "Nutcracker."

Sharon Wehner, who grew up in California, has seen so many "Nutcrackers" that she is no longer sure which was her first.

"I think I saw it when I was nine," she says. "And I danced Clara when I was 15."

And when Wehner is on stage -- now as the Sugar Plum Fairy in Act Two, she does not think of what she is doing as part of Clara's dream.

"The role takes on a life of its own," she says. "And still it's a dream role; the music is so beautiful."

"Clara is truly the center of 'Nutcracker,'" says Peter Davison, artistic co-director of Boulder Ballet, the only other company in the region that -- in collaboration with the Boulder Philharmonic -- stages a full-length production of the work. "We start with her as small girl who dreams a dream that is a preview of her later life.

"Then there is Clara the adult performed by a second dancer."

And while other companies make Clara primarily a spectator of the famous dances in Act Two, Davison keeps her -- so to speak -- on her toes.

"We focus on her throughout the production," he says. "She takes the lead in almost every dance."

That means that at BB Clara and the Nutcracker dance much of what is allotted to the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier by other directors.

For Davison the climactic moment in "Nutcracker" comes at the end of the war against the mice and the defeat of their king.

"The Nutcracker is almost killed," Davison says. "When the battle ends he is no longer a toy, and Clara is a mature woman."

This approach, he feels, brings high drama to a plot that is otherwise rather thin.

Davison describes the BB staging as a combination of traditional classical style with new characters, circus arts and special effects.

"Our choreography visualizes Tchaikovsky's score in a way that is both classical and relevant to today's audiences," he says. "While many productions downplay Clara's story and focus instead on abstract dance, we follow Clara as she grows from child to adult during the course of a dream.

"Clara herself is involved in much of the dancing that happens around her."

Boulder Ballet's production of The Nutcracker combines traditional classical style with new characters, circus arts, and unique special effects.

Clara is also the main character in the "Nutcracker" staged by the David Taylor Dance Theatre at the Lakewood Cultural Center.

"She a flesh-and-blood character who does more dancing than anyone else in the cast," says DT artistic director James Baldwin. "She even joins in the Russian Dance, traditionally for men only!"

Although Tchaikovsky reportedly "detested" the score, when "Nutcracker" was premiered in 1892 he commented: "I am daily becoming more attuned to my task."

He interrupted work on the score to travel to New York to open Carnegie Hall in 1891.

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